[greenyoda]

Working mostly for equity is a crapshoot -- most start-up companies will probably fail (look at the Internet Bubble, which seems to be repeating itself today as the Social Networking Bubble). So if I ever worked for one, I'd only settle for a market-rate salary, plus equity as a bonus for working ridiculous hours. If you're only going to offer equity, the kind of people who you'd be most likely to attract are (1) young, inexperienced people who have no financial obligations, (2) people who are independently wealthy, or (3) unemployed people who have nothing to lose.

As far as your example of hiring an electrician to work on a house you're going to flip: that may have worked well for a few years, but as recent events tell us, the last round of suckers in that game were left with big losses, and the people who worked for them probably never got paid. It doesn't look like a very promising business model.